My new buddy: Mr. Clean

We haven’t even moved into the house yet and we already had our first dance show.  Yesterday.  Amazingly the girls waited two days after getting the keys to perform for us.  The yard is rather large – enormous compared to the one at our old house, so the girls have lots of room to run, play, do cart-wheels and dance.  They are so excited to have the outdoor space.  Although you would think that would stop them from fighting, but noooo.  Oh, I can only dream of that day!

The last three days have been filled with bottles of Mr. Clean, Lysol, and Windex, armed with long yellow gloves, buckets and a humongous pile of rags.  Let’s just say it’s been a ton of fun.

As of Wednesday morning, the previous owners were still at the house and I was anxiously waiting for them to make their exit.  They had lots of family drama go on over the weekend, which delayed their departure, not to mention their inability (or desire) to pack.  So finally by Wednesday mid-day, I was “Just leave.  Leave now.  Leave all of your junk.  Leave the dirty house.  Leave the garbage.  Just please exit as I really want to get in and get started on making it MY home now.” 

OK, so I really didn’t say these things to them, but nicely said something similar.  It was a bit of a difficult situation because they had been my parent’s neighbor for the last 32 years and I knew there were family dynamics playing a part in what they were dealing with and why everything seemed to be such a struggle.  But by delaying the inevitable and “trying” to clean wasn’t going to help anything or anyone.

Little did I know how dirty the house actually was - I had a feeling, but it's nice to wish for more than what you think reality is going to be.  And by me saying “dirty”, I’m being VERY nice right there.  I almost took a picture of my mom’s face as we were scrubbing down one of the rooms yesterday…I asked her if her facial expression was of “ugh, this is hard work and I’m really tired right now” or “OMG, this is so disgusting.  I need a good shower now!”  Obviously, my wish didn't come true.

The house needs a lot of work, but nothing that we are not capable of doing and nothing that we haven’t done before.  The end goal is what I keep remembering and staying focused on.  The long term potential is exciting for me to think about.

The girls are very excited to get settled in and already know which rooms are theirs.  Katelyn has already measured her room and furniture and had decided on the layout for everything.  She’s ready to move in now!  Vanessa has just been enjoying the fact that she can do cart-wheel after cart-wheel and not run out of room in the backyard.  Paige just loves the fact that the house is empty so she can twirl until her heart is content.  We have lots of work ahead of us and soon it will become our home where we’ll enjoy an evening sitting in the backyard while the girls play on the grass.

Going Home...Finally!

It's OFFICIAL!

We are homeowners again.  We closed escrow earlier this week, but are not expecting to move in for another few months.  The current owner - the original owner, a widow, and older, wants to stay there for a few more months until she is able to purchase her new home out of state.  At that time, we'll need to get into the house and do some renovations before getting settled in.  But that day will be here before we know it!

In my free time (HA!  Who created that phrase?!?), I'm researching design websites to get ideas on colors, decor, landscaping, all of the essentials to make this house a home for us.  I have so many ideas floating around, but haven't finalized on anything yet as I want to spend some time in the house watching the light, getting a feel for the rooms, seeing how best we'll use the space.  However, one idea that I came across today was this large vinyl sticker and, in this case, spelling out the family's mission statement.



I love the idea of making it a bold decorative piece in the home, in a central location, and present to the entire family.  If, after all, this is what my family stands for, why not prominently display it?  I know it might not be everyone's decorative cup of tea, but why hide who we are and what we stand for.  I think the phrase in the above picture is completely accurate of my family's values, with the addition of "We live the Golden Rule" and "We love Jesus".

Future Pianists

At some point in my childhood, my mom received my grandmother's piano. The piano wasn't anything fancy, just a simple upright, but to me, had wonderful history. We all "played" on it, usually self-teaching ourselves. However, my sister was the only one of us to actually take lessons. Not sure why I never did, nor do I even remember being offered the opportunity to do so.

Somewhere along the line, most of us where out of the house and my mom really didn't want the piano in her living room anymore. A neighbor's daughter, who by the way was part of the most musically gifted family I have ever know, was on the receiving end of taking home the piano.

Last Summer I had an itch to get a piano. I wanted to expose the girls to music, the love of it and to the art of making music, even if just self-taught. It would have been so simple if my mom had not given our family piano away for FREE. But because she choose to give it away, even though we all told her not too as someday one of us might like it, I had to go on a hunt for one. Not bitter at all. Really, I'm not.

So I found this well-used and well-loved piano on Craig's List. Here Paige and her cousin, Elizabeth, are making beautiful music together. And since we are in-between homes right now, can you guess where this piano now resides? Yep, under the picture against the wall in my mom's living room. Yes, the exact same wall where our family's piano use to live, before she gave it away for free.

So long, farewell...

This weekend was filled with bittersweet emotions. We moved out of our home...the first home we bought; the one we moved into when Katelyn was just 5 months old; the one where Vanessa and Paige were brought home too; the one that took so much of our blood, sweet and hard work to make it beautiful; the one that had an Olympic-size swimming pool in the backyard and not a single tree around; the one that was visited by a friendly ghost named Herb; the one where we became a family and created so many memories.

Good-bye home...

Although I am really excited about our new home and all that it offers us, I am going to miss this one. Although it wasn't perfect, we made it ours and were very blessed to have a roof over our heads. I remember the day we picked Katelyn's yellow paint, because it was sunny and warm. I still smile thinking about Vanessa's awesome purple and green room that matched her bedding so perfectly. I remember falling in love with being pregnant again for the third time and finding out it was a little girl (we had surprises with the first two pregnancies) and painting her room shades of pink. I loved the kitchen, especially since I got to pick everything to go in it. I loved the wood floors that Bill and my dad installed beautifully.

Honestly, there are so many things that I love about this house, but mostly, what I love most are the memories that we created in the years living there. Houses are just things. Yes, having a roof to live under is rather important, but it is just a thing. As we packed our entire lives into a portable storage box, and with the uncertainty on how the items will survive (or not) during shipping, we were once again reminded that all of those items are not what is important. If they break, they break...it's not the end of the world. But having my family together, happy, safe, healthy and excited to be together is invaluable.

Awhile back, Katelyn made this clay figurine. It's our family and I have it on my night-stand in our temporary home reminding me that no matter how crazy life gets, my family is what is most important to me.

The Hotel Is Now Closed

There had been a disgusting smell in one part of our home over the last few days. I figured that our pipes had finally bit the dust and we were leaking under the house...yes, it smelt that bad. It wouldn't have surprised me if it was indeed our pipes, as our plumbing stinks. No exaggeration, is just sucks. No actually, that's the thing it doesn't do. It is just worthless. One flush never works effectively, so always requires two. Anything more than one sheet of toilet paper clogs it up, and so you can only imagine how #2 does going down. And with kids, one sheet is nearly impossible, especially when they are learning to wipe completely themselves. Needless to say, we've made friends with our plunger. I tell you, I know how to use that baby like the pros.

I kept asking Bill to go under the house and see what was going on, but it wasn't really a priority to him. At one point today, I had the windows and door open, yet since it was raining and cold, had to keep the heater going so that we wouldn't freeze. Good way to spend money, I know. I think he finally got the hint and made the trip down under. No joke, he was under there for almost TWO HOURS! All the while, he was talking to himself about how bad this was or that was, or moaning about trying to fit through a small tight spot - after all, in one part of our home, the crawlspace is maybe a foot so scooting on your belly is the only way around.

What did he find, you are wondering?

Oh goodies, let me tell you!

Lovely, beautiful, friendly little critters who had decided to make our home's crawlspace their home (puts a new spin on "mi casa, es su casa" doesn't it now!) and now their graveyard. The bag that was brought up was HUGE...filled with not just one dead rat, but 15! FIFTEEN! That's a one AND a five next to each other! That's way more than 1 and almost touching the number 20! That's not just a family of critters, but an entire village, including the neighbors.

GGGGRRRROOOOSSSSSSSS!!!

Cue: Circus Theme Music

I'm standing in the living room folding a HUGE mound of laundry; Paige is in her walker scooting around me, pulling clean folded clothes off of the couch as quickly as I get them folded; Vanessa is at the art table unrolling a coloring page roll across the room (imagine a full roll of paper towels being rolled out); Katelyn is at the kitchen table doing a "project", one that involves her cutting a piece of paper into a million little pieces; Bill is propped up in the corner of the couch trying to work while incapacitated with back pain.

Let there be COLOR!

Fall is here! It has been snowing leaves in our neighborhood for a little while now. It is beautiful, especially the trees that are “on fire”. Even though we do not get all four seasons as well-defined as some areas of the country, we do get to experience a modified version of them.

As I sit here now, I am looking out my living room window at a tree in my neighbor’s yard. This tree is stunning and has been beautiful to watch as it transforms its leaves from bright green to beautiful shades of orange, red and yellow. Soon, this tree will become bare, but while I can, I am soaking in the color and warmth it provides.

Blinking lights, bumps, neon signs...something!

The girls, Riley (our dog) and I took a walk to our local park. This is not something out of the ordinary, so we are all familiar with the rules: ears on, stop at all corners and do not cross a street without Mom next to you. Katelyn leads the way on her bike wearing her bright pink helmet, with Vanessa following on her tricycle sporting her yellow helmet and Riley and I bring up the rear. We are fortunate enough that from our house to the park, we only have to cross residential streets. We cross from corner to corner, handicap ramp to handicap ramp.

As we were crossing the other day, I checked to make sure that there were no cars in sight. We started to cross and were perhaps about half way when a car started to come down the road. No problem, right? We are a good several hundred feet in front of them – they can see us and slow down to let us finish crossing. Katelyn had safely crossed when Vanessa got stuck trying to cross. By this point, the car is coming at us very fast and not slowing down. CRAP! I have one child on one side of the street, the other is stuck and I’m going to be taken out by this oncoming car. I hold up my hand, as if I was some cross-walk guard (without my neon vest) and start yelling at the car to “STOP”. Nope, not happening. “STOP!…STOP!!…STOP!!!”. At this point, he starts to maneuver to drive around me, so that he wouldn’t have to slow down. I step over to block him, because after all, we are in the middle of the road and if he tried to go around me and didn’t gauge correctly, he would have hit Katelyn. And don’t forget, I have Vanessa sitting about two feet from the ground on my other side, so I was terrified that the driver wouldn’t even look for her.

I finally got him to stop, after several “choice” words in my head. I really wanted to tell him off and yell everything in my head out-loud to him, but what kind of example would I be setting for my girls. And talk about a vocabulary for them too! They would have learned several new words if I had made that decision. And furthermore, if the driver had decided to get out of his car to confront me, what kind of place would I have been in to safely protect my girls and me. Perhaps Riley would have helped defend us – actually, I know he would have, especially if I started to scream. But I really didn’t want to go down that path.

We finished our walk around the park, with me fuming the entire time. Since then, I have made contact with my representative from the Department of Transportation with the goal of getting a cross walk, and perhaps blinking lights, in efforts to make sure that others visiting the park can do so safely and perhaps drivers will slow down in that area. Personally, I would love several speed bumps on this road too, as obviously this driver was going too fast if he was able to get from one end to the other end on this long street before we crossed (and he wasn’t even on the street when we entered).

I am anxious to see my tax dollars at work.

Enjoying Summer Playtime

Our doorbell rang and it was a group of kids from the block asking if Katelyn and Vanessa can join them outside to play. YES, of course they can! The girls joined the group, a group of all boys by the way, outside for a game of tag and a few rounds of hide-n-seek. They were so tired by the evening, after the constant running and laughing all afternoon long.

You see, this was is a big deal for me. Our street is made up of all boys, ranging in age from 5 to 12. Actually, there are two families with girls just around my girls’ ages and a few years older, but they never come outside to play. I’m not sure what’s up with that – maybe it’s the personality of the family, perhaps their kid’s just don’t like hind-n-seek as much as mine do.

So the boys on our block play like…well, um, boys. And it’s usually very different than how girls play. However, we’ve been spending a lot of time outside this summer and the boys have gotten to know Katelyn and Vanessa better and know that these girls enjoying digging for worms as much as they do.

Bill and I recently cut down the 50 foot tree in our front yard. We did not want to remove the tree, but it has been causing sidewalk damage, plus it sits, rather, sat, atop of the main water and sewer lines to our home. Therefore, since we’ve had problems inside our home in these areas previously, we are guessing the tree roots are invading the pipes. We talked to several arborists and each one said that as soon as we trim the roots enabling us to repair the sidewalk, the tree will die from a form of root rot and shock which this tree is prone too. We were really left with no option. We applied for a permit to remove the tree, along with a permit to repair the sidewalk. As homeowners, you are responsible for all maintenance starting at the street, including city trees and city sidewalk. And of course, you cannot just fix these things on your own…you have to apply for a permit, do all work to city specs and then have all work approved upon completion. It’s rather a cumbersome process, for which you are paying entirely out of your pocket for.

While we were outside cutting down the tree, we had everyone on our block out watching, encouraging and gasping as we cut the tree down. By the late afternoon, all of the kids ended up in our front yard playing in a small portable pool we had set up on the front lawn. The older boys took charge and made sure no one got hurt and that everyone had a turn. They watched out for Vanessa, the littlest of the group, making sure she felt included. I was a little nervous about how the group of young boys was going to play with two small girls. But they, especially the older ones, were amazing…almost as if each of the families that these boys belong to have younger sister siblings to watch out for. None of them do – they each come from families of all boys. It was as if they’ve adopted Katelyn and Vanessa as their younger sisters and they are playing the older protective brother role. I grew up on a block with at least 25 children around the same age, so watching my own children play a game of tag outside brings back such warm wonderful memories, the kind that you always hope your own children would get to experience.